Published

YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE! MAKE YOUR TIME! [Author: Lum the Mad]

As seen on Quarter to Three, Derek Smart has a new product out. I’m hesitant to actually call it a game, with instructions such as these:

You are going into a combat situation, so you want to activate the ship’s Passive Target Acquisition system, which controls its turrets. So select the PTA icon (the bottom one) and set its charge to 50%. Now that this system is activated, the ship’s turrets will automatically track and fire upon any targets which come within range of the ship.

But an arcane control system is nothing when you are modelling the entirety of space. In real time. On your PC. With magic missiles.

And I think that I can say, without even batting an eyelid, that it leaves the Tribes 2 terrain engine in the dust. Besides, while T2 is chugging along with an area that is, indeed, quite large for the standard FPS, BCM renders *entire* planets – some the size of real world Jupiter. In real time. All 200+ of them. And hardly breaks a sweat. Complete with different climate effects, weather effects (rain, snow, thunder, lighting etc). As well as the ability to fly, drive, run around in first person, swim, go deep sea diving etc…..then climb back into your craft and head back into space.

In case you’re wondering how exactly this is relevant, remember that the mad scientist’s next project is making a Battlecruiser MMOG. YOU! Stop laughing! It looks more feasible every day. As Rodney “Stop HITTING ME” Hodge of Playnet says,

We did the best we could with the resources available to us and unfortunately we did fall a little short. C’est La Vie! There is no sense in dwelling on it except for keeping the lessons learned with us, and putting all of our focus on what we can do today and in preparing for the future.

So they’re French. Now it all comes together. I’ll be over here in the corner, gibbering quietly, wondering if the Battlecruiser demo will actually physically destroy my hard drive.